Goethe Dies (seagull German Library)

This collection of four stories by the writer George Steiner called one of the masters of European fiction is as longtime fans of Thomas Bernhard would expect bleakly comic and inspiringly rancorous. The subject of his stories vary in one Goethe summons Wittgenstein to discuss the Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus Montaigne A Story in 22 Installments tells of a young man sealing himself in a tower to read Reunion meanwhile satirizes that very impulse to escape and the final story rounds out the collection by making Bernhard himself a victim persecuted by his greatest enemyhis very homeland of Austria. Underpinning all these variously comic tragic and bitingly satirical excursions is Bernhards abiding interest in and deep knowledge of the philosophy of doubt. Bernhards work can seem offputting on first acquaintance as he suffers no fools and offers no hand to assist the unwary reader. But those who make the effort to engage with Bernhard on his own uncompromising terms will discover a writer with powerful comic gifts penetrating insight into the failings and delusions of modern life and an unstinting desire to tell the whole unvarnished unwelcome truth. Start here readers the rewards are great.